


Duality

by spacejargon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexuality, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 07:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15552651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacejargon/pseuds/spacejargon
Summary: There is a difference in how Castiel looks at Dean Winchester, from afar and up close, compared to how Dean sees him.





	Duality

Castiel breathes in steadying, shallow gasps of air through his mouth and out his nose. His eyes are wild and he looks wholly uncomfortable, as if wanting to squirm away when he looks anywhere but at Dean. By his sides, his fingers fist into bed sheets and his cheeks are tinged with heat.

Dean sits on his lap, his legs folded out to either side of Castiel and just under Castiel’s chin is where his lips travel to. Castiel bares his throat, tipping his head back. Almost unwillingly, as he moves in slow movements, coaxed by Dean’s lips traveling along his jaw.

“What does...” Castiel trails off, as if trying to concentrate on thinking. The words stutter on his brain and fall in a jumbled mix. “Any of this do?”

Dean pulls away, his head pulling back to eye Castiel in mixed concern. “If you don’t want to do this, we can stop.” His hands retract from edging near Castiel’s, balancing himself on Castiel’s lap. In an action very much unlike him, Castiel averts his eyes. “D’you wanna stop?”

He squirms as the question hangs in the air before the words finally stumble out. “You don’t have to.”

Dean smiles, bright and amused with a darker glint in his eyes. “That mean you too?”

The angel sucks in a breath and exhales through his mouth, his cheeks puffing some when the breath slowly unsticks itself from between his ribs. “You said not to explain beyond ‘minimal conversation’.”

“Small talk,” Dean corrects, vaguely aware of his weight on Castiel and wondering if the angel feels uncomfortable with how long he’s been sitting on him at this point. “Do you not like what I’m doing? ‘Cause I need to know, Cas.”

“No, it’s...” Castiel hesitates, his eyes scanning behind his eyelids in a languid blink. “I have watched over humanity for centuries. The patterns of courtship have differed little.”

Oh boy, talk about pillow talk from an angel.

“The act itself does not escape my grasp of understanding. The reason for humans to mate is to propagate the species. In more modern times, sexual relations are seen as a physical act of love, conquest, and power.”

He swallows, words rolling off his tongue in a relaxed tone compared to how he once was with Dean’s hands on him. “Arguably, the concepts of virility, vulnerability, and protestations of romantic ideations are also considered within the realm of a physical relationship.”

“O...kay. Is that angel speak for ‘I don’t understand you humans and your primal urges’ or is that Cas speak for ‘I can’t voice what I want because I’m an angel and I don’t understand you’.”

Castiel scowls at him while Dean chuckles. “I don’t understand what you want from me, Dean.” He sighs, his shoulders slumping when the confession comes. “All other signs presented in your actions indicate one result: you want sex.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

He suddenly goes quiet. Dean backs off of Castiel then and there, deciding to give him space as he sits on the edge of his bed beside him. Castiel rolls his shoulders a few times, pops and cracks rumbling from his spine as he moves to face Dean, crossing one leg in front of him.

The angel’s hands clasp in his lap, staring solely at Dean with bright blue eyes dotted with a hint of trouble. Something is amiss in how Castiel holds himself, despite outward appearances. “I don’t feel sexual attraction, Dean. I can sense your arousal whenever you see me. More so when you kiss me.”

To his credit, Dean doesn’t immediately say something stupid. It’s a foreign concept to him but he wisely keeps his mouth shut, trying to work his mind around it. “Like toward me in particular or...” The alternative seems somehow worse. “At all? Is it some angel thing?”

The moment that comes out of his mouth he winces because it’s wrong and he knows it, just after recalling his past experiences with angels that hadn’t fit the mold of Heaven’s warriors. But maybe, in some horribly strange way, it could hold an ounce of truth.

Castiel shakes his head. “You are almost correct. I do not feel any sort of sexual desire toward you, or anyone else. I may be able to...become aroused, but the satisfaction of sex is not a concept I am familiar with.” He shrinks under Dean’s gaze, his fingers twitching as he tightens his hands to a white-knuckle grip. “It isn’t that I don’t feel anything at all toward you, Dean. Rather, it is that I cannot feel _that_ specifically.”

His mind twists in all sorts of ways like a pretzel that makes itself into a bundle of knots. “So it’s like an angel thing. Is that why you didn’t want to get laid that one time?”

Castiel sighs under his breath. The more he fidgets, he realizes, the worse Dean’s concern grows. Its manifestation will twist itself, undoubtedly, to bend back on Dean. He knows how Dean’s mind works because he’s seen it all before. “I don’t know, Dean. I cannot speak for all of us.”

“Well,” Dean takes a breath in the certain way he thinks carefully, as if looking for a remedy to a situation that doesn’t need a bandage to fix what isn’t broken. “...uh, I dunno how to take that.”

Castiel does not like the feeling of being looked at like he’s something to be fixed. His eyes are not recycle bin blue, as Dean’s are not the green of sea monsters with unbending whims.

There is a loneliness to Dean’s, of swamp green not found in a crayon box but in the lush of a rainforest’s swamp. Desolation lies in the thick of them.

Castiel’s bad luck gives him a terrible hand. Dean’s fall from his shoulders, his lips no longer curving under his neck nor tracing the stubble of a new day’s growth. They sit together, but too far apart. “Are you upset with me?”

“What?” Dean’s eyes narrow, scandalized as he quickly softens. “What? No, no, why would I be? I mean, at you not being able to feel like how I do when I...” he trails off, his eyes raking over Castiel with the twinge of lust, smothered in a guilty glance away Castiel keeps to himself. “That sucks, man.”

Castiel nods, articulating his thoughts with Dean’s processes and how different they are from his own. Dean speaks a language Castiel wants to understand, even if some parts are a little hard. “I suppose it does.”

Under the weight of Castiel’s gaze, Dean squirms. “So, uh, d’you not want to do this anymore? Really should give a heads-up if you’re not into this kind of stuff, Cas.” The fleeting expression of his suggests humiliation, amidst an uncomfortable squeeze of a frown. “Didn’t mean to force it on you.”

“No, I do,” he reaches for Dean’s hand before it leaves him, the one closest to Castiel’s knee and covers it. “You misunderstand. I may not feel lustful at this particular moment, but I would not say I am not enjoying your company.”

Dean raises a brow and swallows. “...You really need to work on your bedside manner, Cas.”

“Amongst other things,” he responds simply, leaning forward with the intensity of an eager learner, with all the clumsiness of the inexperienced. He tries to kiss Dean but it lands on his cheek, the scratchy part of his growing beard ticklish and strange. But no less wonderful, in the sense that is Dean.

Dean chuckles with a contented noise and moves his head to redirect Castiel’s efforts into a more solid kiss. Castiel’s hands come to both sides of his face and keep him there, following the kiss with the expertise of an eager beginner.

Silence grows when the kiss travels down Dean’s jaw, lips pressing delicately to his throat like he’s afraid to bite—something Dean tries hard not to think about. Each kiss is shy; chaste and lingering all the same. Though it isn’t much, it’s nice to get lost in the feeling, if only for the moment.

Which is quickly shattered when Castiel moves to his shoulder and his arms suddenly wrap around Dean. His fingers land in between Dean’s shoulder blades, drawing two lines up to his shoulders.

Like where wings would be, the strange thought pops into mind. When Castiel looks up at him, he hazards a guess. “You enjoying yourself there?”

A small but genuine smile reaches the angel’s lips. “Only with you, Dean.”

Taking part, Dean’s arms come around Castiel, taking the space over him where his wings would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
